Fighter jets bombed a village in Swat's Matta tehsil on Sunday morning, killing at least 47 people, including 22 non-combatants and damaging a dozen houses. ...

The media information centre in Mingora claimed that 25 militants were killed in the air strike in Barthana and scores injured. It said security forces had also destroyed a guesthouse, or hujra, of commander Alamgir being used as a "den" by militants.

Pakistani security forces have launched a series of major military assaults against extremists since Aug. 6, targeting several enclaves along the border with Afghanistan. The military says at least 1,000 militants have been killed in Bajaur alone, the Associated Press (AP) reports.

Those assaults have effectively put Pakistan in a state of war, according to The New York Times.

Not since Pakistan forged an alliance with the United States after 9/11 has the Pakistani Army fought its own people on such a scale and at such close quarters to a major city. After years of relative passivity, the army is now engaged in heavy fighting with the militants on at least three fronts.

The sudden engagement of the Pakistani Army comes after months in which the United States has heaped criticism, behind the scenes and in public, on Pakistan for not doing enough to take on the militants, and increasingly took action into its own hands with drone strikes and even a raid by Special Operations forces in Pakistan's tribal areas.

The US deployed a small unit of about 30 special forces personnel into Pakistan [last] week to bolster the ability of Pakistan's Frontier Corps to fight its own insurgency.

The team, which also includes some British special forces, is significant, not for its size, but for the expectation that it can give Pakistan the tools to fight militants on its own. That is key to American defense officials who are desperate to reverse violence in the region but say any counterinsurgency there must have a Pakistani face.

Amid the developments, Washington dispatched an envoy yet again to Islamabad to discuss the growing violence, the AP reports.

"The country is facing 25 per cent inflation and a plunging currency and needs up to $5bn to avoid defaulting on sovereign debt due for repayment next year. ...

Pakistan's overwhelmingly poor population of 160 million is already suffering from rocketing food and fuel prices and enduring daily power cuts caused by energy shortages.

The Pakistani rupee has lost about a third of its value this year. The benchmark 100-stock index had already fallen more than 40 per cent from a record high in April when its board of directors put a floor under it at the end of August.